China Tech News has an article on two Taiwan institute’s jointly setting up a cloud computing company.

Cloud Computing Center Planned In Taiwan

February 1, 2010

Chunghwa Telecom, Trend Micro, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, and Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry will jointly set up a cloud computing center and will invest NTD1 billion to establish a cloud computing company.

According to reports in Taiwanese local media, because of its telecom business and technology advantages, Chunghwa Telecom will be in charge of the basic construction and operation of this new project. Trend Micro will be responsible for the expansion of international market via its subsidiaries worldwide. Industrial Technology Research Institute will be committed to the hardware development; and Institute for Information Industry will combine industry resources to develop cloud computing services and applications.

The Taiwanese see a trend many of us do in that companies could go direct to Taiwan to buy the complete cloud computing data center infrastructure and hardware.

Taiwan's related government departments reportedly plan to create a complete supply chain incorporating a cloud computing-based Internet data center, cloud computing devices and cloud computing services. The entire supply chain will be sold to overseas markets and is expected to gain sales and peripheral business opportunities of USD10 billion by 2014.

Why buy from HP, IBM, Dell when you can direct to the manufacturer?

The Taiwanese have also done a good job of focusing on market segments for cloud computing.

For the application planning of cloud computing, Taiwan will initially establish two major industries focused on the cloud computing medical industry and cloud computing education industry. In the long run, it will develop six cloud computing-based emerging industries, including green energy, tourism, health, agriculture, culture, and innovation.

If you look at their area of focus and overlap it with what I blogged about at Mizzou there is an overlap – health, education, energy, innovation, agriculture.